While I am most emphatically and sincerely opposed to taking any step that will force
our country into the useless and senseless war now being waged in Europe, yet, if this
resolution passes, I shall not permit my feeling of opposition to its passage to interfere
in any way with my duty either as a senator or as a citizen in bringing success and
victory to American arms. I am bitterly opposed to my country entering the war, but if,
notwithstanding my opposition, we do enter it, all of my energy and all of my power will
be behind our flag in carrying it on to victory.

The resolution now before the Senate is a declaration of war. Before taking this
momentous step, and while standing on the brink of this terrible vortex, we ought to pause
and calmly and judiciously consider the terrible consequences of the step we are about to
take. We ought to consider likewise the route we have recently traveled and ascertain
whether we have reached our present position in a way that is compatible with the neutral
position which we claimed to occupy at the beginning and through the various stages of
this unholy and unrighteous war.

No close student of recent history will deny that both Great Britain and Germany have,
on numerous occasions since the beginning of the war, flagrantly violated in the most
serious manner the rights of neutral vessels and neutral nations under existing
international law, as recognized up to the beginning of this war by the civilized world.

The reason given by the President in asking Congress to declare war against Germany is
that the German government has declared certain war zones, within which, by the use of
submarines, she sinks, without notice, American ships and destroys American lives. . . .
The first war zone was declared by Great Britain. She gave us and the world notice of it
on, the 4th day of November, 1914. The zone became effective Nov. 5, 1914. . . . This zone
so declared by Great Britain covered the whole of the North Sea. . . . The first German
war zone was declared on the 4th day of February, 1915, just three months after the
British war zone was declared. Germany gave fifteen days' notice of the establishment of
her zone, which became effective on the 18th day of February, 1915. The German war zone
covered the English Channel and the high seawaters around the British Isles. . . .

It is unnecessary to cite authority to show that both of these orders declaring
military zones were illegal and contrary to international law. It is sufficient to say
that our government has officially declared both of them to be illegal and has officially
protested against both of them. The only difference is that in the case of Germany we have
persisted in our protest, while in the case of England we have submitted.

What was our duty as a government and what were our rights when we were confronted with
these extraordinary orders declaring these military zones? First, we could have defied
both of them and could have gone to war against both of these nations for this violation
of international law and interference with our neutral rights. Second, we had the
technical right to defy one and to acquiesce in the other. Third, we could, while
denouncing them both as illegal, have acquiesced in them both and thus remained neutral
with both sides, although not agreeing with either as to the righteousness of their
respective orders. We could have said to American shipowners that, while these orders are
both contrary to international law and are both unjust, we do not believe that the
provocation is sufficient to cause us to go to war for the defense of our rights as a
neutral nation, and, therefore, American ships and American citizens will go into these
zones at their own peril and risk.

Fourth, we might have declared an embargo against the shipping from American ports of
any merchandise to either one of these governments that persisted in maintaining its
military zone. We might have refused to permit the sailing of any ship from any American
port to either of these military zones. In my judgment, if we had pursued this course, the
zones would have been of short duration. England would have been compelled to take her
mines out of the North Sea in order to get any supplies from our country. When her mines
were taken out of the North Sea then the German ports upon the North Sea would have been
accessible to American shipping and Germany would have been compelled to cease her
submarine warfare in order to get any supplies from our nation into German North Sea
ports.

There are a great many American citizens who feel that we owe it as a duty to humanity
to take part in this war. Many instances of cruelty and inhumanity can be found on both
sides. Men are often biased in their judgment on account of their sympathy and their
interests. To my mind, what we ought to have maintained from the beginning was the
strictest neutrality. If we had done this, I do not believe we would have been on the
verge of war at the present time. We had a right as a nation, if we desired, to cease at
any time to be neutral. We had a technical right to respect the English war zone and to
disregard the German war zone, but we could not do that and be neutral.

I have no quarrel to find with the man who does not desire our country to remain
neutral. While many such people are moved by selfish motives and hopes of gain, I have no
doubt but that in a great many instances, through what I believe to be a misunderstanding
of the real condition, there are many honest, patriotic citizens who think we ought to
engage in this war and who are behind the President in his demand that we should declare
war against Germany. I think such people err in judgment and to a great extent have been
misled as to the real history and the true facts by the almost unanimous demand of the
great combination of wealth that has a direct financial interest in our participation in
the war.

We have loaned many hundreds of millions of dollars to the Allies in this controversy.
While such action was legal and countenanced by international law, there is no doubt in my
mind but the enormous amount of money loaned to the Allies in this country has been
instrumental in bringing about a public sentiment in favor of our country taking a course
that would make every bond worth a hundred cents on the dollar and making the payment of
every debt certain and sure. Through this instrumentality and also through the
instrumentality of others who have not only made millions out of the war in the
manufacture of munitions, etc., and who would expect to make millions more if our country
can be drawn into the catastrophe, a large number of the great newspapers and news
agencies of the country have been controlled and enlisted in the greatest propaganda that
the world has ever known to manufacture sentiment in favor of war.

It is now demanded that the American citizens shall be used as insurance policies to
guarantee the safe delivery of munitions of war to belligerent nations. The enormous
profits of munition manufacturers, stockbrokers, and bond dealers must be still further
increased by our entrance into the war. This has brought us to the present moment, when
Congress, urged by the President and backed by the artificial sentiment, is about to
declare war and engulf our country in the greatest holocaust that the world has ever
known.

In showing the position of the bondholder and the stockbroker, I desire to read an
extract from a letter written by a member of the New York Stock Exchange to his customers.
This writer says:

Regarding the war as inevitable, Wall Street believes that it would be preferable to
this uncertainty about the actual date of its commencement. Canada and Japan are at war
and are more prosperous than ever before. The popular view is that stocks would have a
quick, clear, sharp reaction immediately upon outbreak of hostilities, and that then they
would enjoy an old-fashioned bull market such as followed the outbreak of war with Spain
in 1898. The advent of peace would force a readjustment of commodity prices and would
probably mean a postponement of new enterprises. As peace negotiations would be long drawn
out, the period of waiting and uncertainty for business would be long. If the United
States does not go to war, it is nevertheless good opinion that the preparedness program
will compensate in good measure for the loss of the stimulus of actual war.

Here we have the Wall Street view. Here we have the man representing the class of
people who will be made prosperous should we become entangled in the present war, who have
already made millions of dollars, and who will make many hundreds of millions more if we
get into the war. Here we have the cold-blooded proposition that war brings prosperity to
that class of people who are within the viewpoint of this writer.

He expresses the view, undoubtedly, of Wall Street, and of thousands of men elsewhere
who see only dollars coming to them through the handling of stocks and bonds that will be
necessary in case of war. "Canada and Japan,," he says, "are at war, and
are more prosperous than ever before."

To whom does war bring prosperity? Not to the soldier who for the munificent
compensation of $16 per month shoulders his musket and goes into the trench, there to shed
his blood and to die if necessary; not to the brokenhearted widow who waits for the return
of the mangled body of her husband; not to the mother who weeps at the death of her brave
boy; not to the little children who shiver with cold; not to the babe who suffers from
hunger; nor to the millions of mothers and daughters who carry broken hearts to their
graves. War brings no prosperity to the great mass of common and patriotic citizens. It
increases the cost of living of those who toil and those who already must strain every
effort to keep soul and body together. War brings prosperity to the stock gambler on Wall
Street--to those who are already in possession of more wealth than can be realized or
enjoyed.

Again this writer says that if we cannot get war, "it is nevertheless good opinion
that the preparedness program will compensate in good measure for the loss of the stimulus
of actual war." That is, if we cannot get war, let us go as far in that direction as
possible. If we cannot get war, let us cry for additional ships, additional guns,
additional munitions, and everything else that will have a tendency to bring us as near as
possible to the verge of war. And if war comes, do such men as these shoulder the musket
and go into the trenches?

Their object in having war and in preparing for war is to make money. Human suffering
and the sacrifice of human life are necessary, but Wall Street considers only the dollars
and the cents. The men who do the fighting, the people who make the sacrifices are the
ones who will not be counted in the measure of this great prosperity that he depicts. The
stockbrokers would not, of course, go to war because the very object they have in bringing
on the war is profit, and therefore they must remain in their Wall Street offices in order
to share in that great prosperity which they say war will bring. The volunteer officer,
even the drafting officer, will not find them. They will be concealed in their palatial
offices on Wall Street, sitting behind mahogany desks, covered up with clipped
coupons--coupons soiled with the sweat of honest toil, coupons stained with mothers'
tears, coupons dyed in the lifeblood of their fellowmen.

We are taking a step today that is fraught with untold danger. We are going into war
upon the command of gold. We are going to run the risk of sacrificing millions of our
countrymen's lives in order that other countrymen may coin their lifeblood into money. And
even if we do not cross the Atlantic and go into the trenches, we are going to pile up a
debt that the tolling masses that shall come many generations after us will have to pay.
Unborn millions will bend their backs in toil in order to pay for the terrible step we are
now about to take.

We are about to do the bidding of wealth's terrible mandate. By our act we will make
millions of our countrymen suffer, and the consequences of it may well be that millions of
our brethren must shed their lifeblood, millions of brokenhearted women must weep,
millions of children must suffer with cold, and millions of babes must die from hunger,
and all because we want to preserve the commercial right of American citizens to deliver
munitions of war to belligerent nations.

II. Speech by Robert M. LaFollette

I had supposed until recently that it was the duty of senators and representatives in
Congress to vote and act according to their convictions on all public matters that came
before them for consideration and decision. Quite another doctrine has recently been
promulgated by certain newspapers, which unfortunately seems to have found considerable
support elsewhere, and that is the doctrine of "standing back of the President"
without inquiring whether the President is right or wrong.

For myself, I have never subscribed to that doctrine and never shall. I shall support
the President in the measures he proposes when I believe them to be right. I shall oppose
measures proposed by the President when I believe them to be wrong. The fact that the
matter which the President submits for consideration is of the greatest importance is only
an additional reason why we should be sure that we are right and not to be swerved from
that conviction or intimidated in its expression by any influence of power whatsoever.

If it is important for us to speak and vote our convictions in matters of internal
policy, though we may unfortunately be in disagreement with the President, it is
infinitely more important for us to speak and vote our convictions when the question is
one of peace or war, certain to involve the lives and fortunes of many of our people and,
it may be, the destiny of all of them and of the civilized world as well. If, unhappily,
on such momentous questions the most patient research and conscientious consideration we
could give to them leave us in disagreement with the President, I know of no course to
take except to oppose, regretfully but not the less firmly, the demands of the Executive.
. . .

Mr. President, many of my colleagues on both sides of this floor have from day to day
offered for publication in the Record messages and letters received from their
constituents. I have received some 15,000 letters and telegrams. They have come from
forty-four states in the Union. They have been assorted according to whether they speak in
criticism or commendation of my course in opposing war. Assorting the 15,000 letters and
telegrams by states 'in that way, 9 out of 10 are an unqualified endorsement of my course
in opposing war with Germany on the issue presented. . . .

A wire from Chicago received this afternoon from Grace Abbott, of Hull House, says that
in City Council election held yesterday, John Kennedy received the largest plurality of
any of the city councilmen elected. His plurality was 6,157 votes in his ward. On account
of his stand against war, every newspaper in Chicago opposed him bitterly throughout the
campaign. Mr. Kennedy made his campaign on the war issue, and in every speech he took
occasion to declare himself as against war.

There was received in Washington today a petition against war with over 6,1 20
bona-fide signers, which were secured in the city of Minneapolis in one day; and a wire
late this afternoon states that 11,000 more names have been secured to that petition. In
New Ulm, Minn., at an election, according to a telegram received this afternoon, 485 votes
were cast against war to 19 for war. . . .

Do not these messages indicate on the part of the people a deep-seated conviction that
the United States should not enter the European war? . . .

It is unfortunately true that a portion of the irresponsible and war-crazed press,
feeling secure in the authority of the President's condemnation of the senators who
opposed the armed-ship bill, have published the most infamous and scurrilous libels on the
honor of the senators who opposed that bill. It was particularly unfortunate that such
malicious falsehoods should fill the public press of the country at a time when every
consideration for our country required that a spirit of fairness should be observed in the
discussions of the momentous questions under consideration. . . .

Mr. President, let me make a . . . suggestion. It is this: that a minority in one
Congress--mayhap a small minority in one Congress--protesting, exercising the rights which
the Constitution confers upon a minority, may really be representing the majority opinion
of the country, and if, exercising the right that the Constitution gives them, they
succeed in defeating for the time being the will of the majority, they are but carrying
out what was in the mind of the framers of the Constitution; that you may have from time
to time in a legislative body a majority in numbers that really does not represent the
principle of democracy; and that if the question could be deferred and carried to the
people it would be found that a minority was the real representative of the public
opinion. So, Mr. President, it was that they wrote into the Constitution that a
President--that one man--may put his judgment against the will of a majority, not only in
one branch of the Congress but in both branches of the Congress; that he may defeat the
measure that they have agreed upon and may set his one single judgment above the majority
judgment of the Congress. That seems, when you look at it nakedly, to be in violation of
the principle that the majority shall rule; and so it is. Why, is that power given? It is
one of those checks provided by the wisdom of the fathers to prevent the majority from
abusing the power that they chance to have, when they do not reflect the real judgment,
the opinion, the will of the majority of the people that constitute the sovereign power of
the democracy. . . .

The poor, Sir, who are the ones called upon to rot in the trenches, have no organized
power, have no press to voice their will upon this question of peace or war; but, oh, Mr.
President, at some time they will be heard. I hope and I believe they will be heard in an
orderly and a peaceful way. I think they may be heard from before long. I think, Sir, if
we take this step, when the people today who are staggering under the burden of supporting
families at the present prices of the necessaries of life find those prices multiplied,
when they are raised 100 percent, or 200 percent, as they will be quickly, aye, sir, when
beyond that those who pay taxes come to have their taxes doubled and again doubled to pay
the interest on the nontaxable bonds held by Morgan and his combinations, which have been
issued to meet this war, there will come an awakening; they will have their day and they
will be heard. It will be as certain and as inevitable as the return of the tides, and as
resistless, too. . . .

In his message of April 2, the President said:

We have no quarrel with the German people it was not upon their impulse that their
government acted in entering this war; it was not with their previous knowledge or
approval.

Again he says:

We are, let me say again, sincere friends of the German people and shall desire
nothing so much as the early reestablishment of intimate relations of mutual advantage
between us.

At least, the German people, then, are not outlaws.

What is the thing the President asks us to do to these German people of whom he speaks
so highly and whose sincere friend he declares us to be? Here is what he declares we shall
do in this war. We shall undertake, he says--

The utmost practicable cooperation in council and action with the governments now at
war with Germany, and as an incident to that, the extension to those governments of the
most liberal financial credits in order that our resources may, so far as possible, be
added to theirs.

"Practicable cooperation!" Practicable cooperation with England and her
allies in starving to death the old men and women, the children, the sick and the maimed
of Germany. The thing we are asked to do is the thing I have stated. It is idle to talk of
a war upon a government only. We are leagued in this war, or it is the President's
proposition that we shall be so leagued, with the hereditary enemies of Germany. Any war
with Germany, or any other country for that matter, would be bad enough, but there are not
words strong enough to voice my protest against the proposed combination with the Entente
Allies.

When we cooperate with those governments, we endorse their methods; we endorse the
violations of international law by Great Britain; we endorse the shameful methods of
warfare against which we have again and again protested in this war; we endorse her
purpose to wreak upon the German people the animosities which for years her people have
been taught to cherish against Germany; finally, when the end comes, whatever it may be,
we find ourselves in cooperation with our ally, Great Britain, and if we cannot resist now
the pressure she is exerting to carry us into the war, how can we hope to resist, then,
the thousandfold greater pressure she will exert to bend us to her purposes and compel
compliance with her demands?

We do not know what they are. We do not know what is in the minds of those who have
made the compact, but we are to subscribe to it. We are irrevocably, by our votes here, to
marry ourselves to a nondivorceable proposition veiled from us now. Once enlisted, once in
the copartnership, we will be carried through with the purposes, whatever they may be, of
which we now know nothing.

Sir, if we are to enter upon this war in the manner the President demands, let us throw
pretense to the winds, let us be honest, let us admit that this is a ruthless war against
not only Germany's Army and her Navy but against her civilian population as well, and
frankly state that the purpose of Germany's hereditary European enemies has become our
purpose.

Again, the President says "we are about to accept the gage of battle with this
natural foe of liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to
check and nullify its pretensions and its power. " That much, at least, is clear;
that program is definite. The whole force and power of this nation, if necessary, is to be
used to bring victory to the Entente Allies, and to us as their ally in this war.
Remember, that not yet has the "whole force" of one of the warring nations been
used.

Countless millions are suffering from want and privation; countless other millions are
dead and rotting on foreign battlefields; countless other millions are crippled and
maimed, blinded, and dismembered; upon all and upon their children's children for
generations to come has been laid a burden of debt which must be worked out in poverty and
suffering, but the "whole force" of no one of the warring nations has yet been
expended; but our "whole force" shall be expended, so says the President. We are
pledged by the President, so far as he can pledge us, to make this fair, free, and happy
land of ours the same shambles and bottomless pit of horror that we see in Europe today.

Just a word of comment more upon one of the points in the President's address. He says
that this is a war "for the things which we have always carried nearest to our
hearts--for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in
.their own government." In many places throughout the address is this exalted
sentiment given expression.

It is a sentiment peculiarly calculated to appeal to American hearts and, when
accompanied by acts consistent with it, is certain to receive our support; but in this
same connection, and strangely enough, the President says that we have become convinced
that the German government as it now exists--"Prussian autocracy" he calls
it--can never again maintain friendly relations with us. His expression is that
"Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our friend," and repeatedly
throughout the address the suggestion is made that if the German people would overturn
their government, it would probably be the way to peace. So true is this that the
dispatches from London all hailed the message of the President as sounding the death knell
of Germany's government.

But the President proposes alliance with Great Britain, which, however liberty-loving
its people, is a hereditary monarchy, with a hereditary ruler, with a hereditary House of
Lords, with a hereditary landed system, with a limited and restricted suffrage for one
class and a multiplied suffrage power for another, and with grinding industrial conditions
for all the wageworkers. The President has not suggested that we make our support of Great
Britain conditional to her granting home rule to Ireland, or Egypt, or India. We rejoice
in the establishment of a democracy in Russia, but it will hardly be contended that if
Russia was still an autocratic government, we would not be asked to enter this alliance
with her just the same.

Italy and the lesser powers of Europe, Japan in the Orient; in fact, all the countries
with whom we are to enter into alliance, except France and newly revolutionized Russia,
are still of the old order--and it will be generally conceded that no one of them has done
as much for its people in the solution of municipal problems and in securing social and
industrial reforms as Germany.

Is it not a remarkable democracy which leagues itself with allies already far
overmatching in strength the German nation and holds out to such beleaguered nation the
hope of peace only at the price of giving up their government? I am not talking now of the
merits or demerits of any government, but I am speaking of a profession of democracy that
is linked in action with the most brutal and domineering use of autocratic power. Are the
people of this country being so well-represented in this war movement that we need to go
abroad to give other people control of their governments?

Will the President and the supporters of this war bill submit it to a vote of the
people before the declaration of war goes into effect? Until we are willing to do that, it
illy becomes us to offer as an excuse for our entry into the war the unsupported claim
that this war was forced upon the German people by their government "without their
previous knowledge or approval."

Who has registered the knowledge or approval of the American people of the course this
Congress is called upon to take in declaring war upon Germany? Submit the question to the
people, you who support it. You who support it dare not do it, for you know that by a vote
of more than ten to one the American people as a body would register their declaration
against it.

In the sense that this war is being forced upon our people without their knowing why
and without their approval, and that wars are usually forced upon all peoples in the same
way, there is some truth in the statement; but I venture to say that the response which
the German people have made to the demands of this war shows that it has a degree of
popular support which the war upon which we are entering has not and never will have among
our people. The espionage bills, the conscription bills, and other forcible military
measures which we understand are being ground out of the war machine in this country is
the complete proof that those responsible for this war fear that it has no popular support
and that armies sufficient to satisfy the demand of the Entente Allies cannot be recruited
by voluntary enlistments. . . .

Now, I want to repeat: It was our absolute right as a neutral to ship food to the
people of Germany. That is a position that we have fought for through all of our history.
The correspondence of every secretary of state in the history of our government who has
been called upon to deal with the rights of our neutral commerce as to foodstuffs is the
position stated by Lord Salisbury. . . . He was in line with all of the precedents that we
had originated and established for the maintenance of neutral rights upon this subject.

In the first days of the war with Germany, Great Britain set aside, so far as her own
conduct was concerned, all these rules of civilized naval warfare.

According to the Declaration of London, as well as the rules of international law,
there could have been no interference in trade between the United States and Holland or
Scandinavia and other countries, except in the case of ships which could be proven to
carry absolute contraband, like arms and ammunition, with ultimate German destination.
There could have been no interference with the importation into Germany of any goods on
the free list, such as cotton, rubber, and hides. There could have properly been no
interference with our export to Germany of anything on the conditional contraband list,
like flour, grain, and provisions, unless it could be proven by England that such
shipments were intended for the use of the German Army. There could be no lawful
interference with foodstuffs intended for the civilian population of Germany, and if those
foodstuffs were shipped to other countries to be reshipped to Germany, no question could
be raised that they were not intended for the use of the civilian population.

It is well to recall at this point our rights as declared by the Declaration of London
and as declared without the Declaration of London by settled principles of international
law, for we have during the present war become so used to having Great Britain utterly
disregard our rights on the high seas that we have really forgotten that we have any, as
far as Great Britain and her allies are concerned.

Great Britain, by what she called her modifications of the Declaration of London,
shifted goods from the free list to the conditional contraband and contraband lists,
reversed the presumption of destination for civilian population, and abolished the
principle that a blockade to exist at all must be effective. . . .

It is not my purpose to go into detail into the violations of our neutrality by any of
the belligerents. While Germany has again and again yielded to our protests, I do not
recall a single instance in which a protest we have made to Great Britain has won for us
the slightest consideration, except for a short time in the case of cotton. I will not
stop to dwell upon the multitude of minor violations of our neutral rights, such as
seizing our mails, violations of the neutral flag, seizing and appropriating our goods
without the least warrant or authority in law, and impressing, seizing, and taking
possession of our vessels and putting them into her own service.

I have constituents, American citizens, who organized a company and invested large sums
of money in the purchase of ships to engage in foreign carrying. Several of their vessels
plying between the United States and South America were captured almost in our own
territorial waters, taken possession of by the British Government, practically
confiscated, and put into her service or the service of her Admiralty. They are there
today, and that company is helpless. When they appealed to our Department of State, they
were advised that they might "file" their papers; and were given the further
suggestion that they could hire an attorney and prosecute their case in the English Prize
Court. The company did hire an attorney and sent him to England, and he is there now, and
has been there for almost a year, trying to get some redress, some relief, some adjustment
of those rights.

But those are individual cases. There are many others. All these violations have come
from Great Britain and her allies, and are in perfect harmony with Briton's traditional
policy as absolute master of the seas. . . .

The only reason why we have not suffered the sacrifice of just as many ships and just
as many lives from the violation of our rights by the war zone and the submarine mines of
Great Britain as we have through the unlawful acts of Germany in making her war zone in
violation of our neutral rights is simply because we have submitted to Great Britain's
dictation. If our ships had been sent into her forbidden highsea war zone as they have
into the proscribed area Germany marked out on the high seas as a war zone, we would have
had the same loss of life and property in the one case as in the other; but because we
avoided doing that, in the case of England, and acquiesced in her violation of law, we
have not only a legal but a moral responsibility for the position in which Germany has
been placed by our collusion and cooperation with Great Britain. By suspending the rule
with respect to neutral rights in Great Britain's case, we have been actively aiding her
in starving the civil population of Germany. We have helped to drive Germany into a
corner, her back to the wall to fight with what weapons she can lay her hands on to
prevent the starving of her women and children, her old men and babes.

The flimsy claim which has sometimes been put forth that possibly the havoc in the
North Sea was caused by German mines is too absurd for consideration. . . .

I find all the correspondence about the submarines of Germany; I find them arrayed; I
find the note warning Germany that she would be held to a "strict
accountability" for violation of our neutral rights; but you will search in vain
these volumes for a copy of the British order in council mining the North Sea.

I am talking now about principles. You cannot distinguish between the principles which
allowed England to mine a large area of the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea in order to
shut in Germany, and the principle on which Germany by her submarines seeks to destroy all
shipping which enters the war zone which she has laid out around the British Isles.

The English mines are intended to destroy without warning every ship that enters the
war zone she has proscribed, killing or drowning every passenger that cannot find some
means of escape. It is neither more nor less than that which Germany tries to do with her
submarines in her war zone. We acquiesced in England's action without protest. It is
proposed that we now go to war with Germany for identically the same action upon her part.
. . .

I say again that when two nations are at war any neutral nation, in order to preserve
its character as a neutral nation, must exact the same conduct from both warring nations;
both must equally obey the principles of international law. If a neutral nation falls in
that, then its rights upon the high seas--to adopt the President's phrase--are relative
and not absolute. There can be no greater violation of our neutrality than the requirement
that one of two belligerents shall adhere to the settled principles of law and that the
other shall have the advantage of not doing so. The respect that German naval authorities
were required to pay to the rights of our people upon the high seas would depend upon the
question whether we had exacted the same rights from Germany's enemies. If we had not done
so, we lost our character as a neutral nation and our people unfortunately had lost the
protection that belongs to neutrals. Our responsibility was joint in the sense that we
must exact the same conduct from both belligerents. . . .

The failure to treat the belligerent nations of Europe alike, the failure to reject the
unlawful "war zones" of both Germany and Great Britain is wholly accountable for
our present dilemma. We should not seek to hide our blunder behind the smoke of battle, to
inflame the mind of our people by half truths into the frenzy of war in order that they
may never appreciate the real cause of it until it is too late. I do not believe that our
national honor is served by such a course. The right way is the honorable way.

One alternative is to admit our initial blunder to enforce our rights against Great
Britain as we have enforced our rights against Germany; demand that both those nations
shall respect our neutral rights upon the high seas to the letter; and give notice that we
will enforce those rights from that time forth against both belligerents and then live up
to that notice.

The other alternative is to withdraw our commerce from both. The mere suggestion that
food supplies would be withheld from both sides impartially would compel belligerents to
observe the principle of freedom of the seas for neutral commerce.